Starting the Year with a Professional Learning Network

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Happy Friday!

How do you grow professionally? Read books? Talk to colleagues?  Build and improve upon others ideas?  You can do all of this at your own pace using Twitter.

By now you probably know about twitter. It's in the news a good bit.   But, it's also a great way to build a PLN (Professional Learning Network) Educators from across the globe are using Twitter to share their ideas. For me personally, this has been a great way to interact with Tech leaders across the world.  Twitter is a professional learning network where you read and share ideas. Twitter is not a place to post pictures of your beach trip.  It is  one of the leading ways that Teachers are giving and receiving Professional Learning. Twitter is a little different than other social media sites because  tweets can only be 280 (Recently it changed from 140 characters.) Many people use twitter to share their experiences in the classroom,  share links to educational blogs or articles, or to take part in twitter chats to discuss educational topics.  With twitter you can search and see relevant articles by searching for hashtags such as #edchat #ELAchat #growthmindset #googleedu. Those of us in the District who enjoy tweeting are beginning to tag our tweets with #bluewayondisplay.  Here is a great list of educational hashtags. It's also a great way to connect your class with another class globally. Yesterday in our Elbert Innovates Google Certification class we connected with a teacher and classroom in Nevada to discuss Google Hangouts.   HERE is a running document to find educators in Elbert County, Georgia, and Nationally on twitter.  If you have a twitter account please add so we can all learn from each other. Below is a great video that explains twitter. I hope that you have a chance to add your twitter profile to our sheet so that we can all learn from each other.  If you have further questions about twitter please contact me  or talk to someone in your building who uses Twitter.

Take Care,
Clint


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